RikOz

Exactly my reasoning :D

Funbot 5000, not looking the least bit ominous:

That reminds me of some random Legacy Chain guy in The Hollows telling his partner how eager he is to visit Atlas Park again, because they have this marvelous dish there called "taco". I think that was what first made me wonder where those guys are from. In Pocket D, near the monkey cage: Joe Young: This cage works out a lot better than the barrels did. I think that's a barrel of monkeys joke, but not sure.

I liked the lighting here: This Arachnos disguise is perfect! They'll never suspect I'm working for Longbow! I always enjoy accidentally hitting those spots where the lighting and geometry glitch out.

So, my "baby" sister designed this: ... and I had to recreate the character in-game: (Empathy/Sonic Attack defender)

I found a new one to autocomplete on future characters: The Sister Solaris part of the DA arc; the finale(?) where you have to fight your way through multiple spawns of multiple Boss-level monsters in Cimerora. I successfully completed that one on my first Incarnate character, but she's a fire/fire/fire blaster. She was able to stay airborne and fight at range, mostly out of danger from most of the monsters. She's also the one that soloed Marchand's entire arc in Brickstown at level 35. My second incarnate character to go through the whole DA story was my dual blades/SR scrapper. Yeah, she wasn't soloing crowds of giant Bosses. I tried, oh how I tried. But it just wasn't happening. So I'll be autocompleting that particular mission on most future alts, particularly melee alts.

I did something similar with my Jamaican fire/fire scrapper, Hotstepper. Rainbow fire, mon!

My first defender, Golden Rocket Frog (Poison/Water Blast)!

Okay, I went ahead and resurrected Sunkiss, though I had to name her Sunsweet because somebody had taken her old name *glances around suspiciously* I got her first six costumes designed (which is five more than I designed for the original character), and this is the one I like best:

After the shutdown announcement on live, I frantically went to work getting as many screenshots as I could of all of my costumes so that, in the unlikely event the game somehow came back, I would be able to accurately recreate; them. And whaddayaknow? I've resurrected many of those original characters, but there are still a lot that haven't made a comeback (yet). I mean, I only got to play on live for a year, but I still managed to roll 93 characters, so there were a good chunk of them that never made it past level 5. But I thought I'd dig through those old folders of screenshots and share some of my "live" characters that have not yet reincarnated. Dani J: Jazmyn Teagarden: Crimson Crosshair (I was surprised a few months ago to spot another player (on Everlasting) who had independently come up with the same name): Icex: Redmark: Winnow: Lady Generator: Mr. Stick: Veronica Valiant: Cerebolt: Lifecircle: Tora: Cuttie Cutie: Tae Kwon Dori: Chowderhead: Green Piece: Iyzebel: Kinkali: Sunkiss: Solar Sail (I may have created this one at the same time as Sunkiss): There are more, but I thought these were some of the more notable designs that I haven't yet redone in HC.

Going through some of my screenshots from back on live, and I found myself wondering just what in hell was going on with the lighting in this one:

Sgt. Sabaton on his way to rescue Laura Lockhart! A view of Cap au Diable from the AE building: I actually managed to save one of the Scrapyarders from Cage in that "Discarded Picket Sign" hero alignment mission. He must have been made of sterner stuff than usual: A screenshot from live (March 31, 2012, if I read the filename correctly): Reproduced as best I could for Homecoming, April 21, 2022, just a hair over 10 years later: Looking at those last two side-by-side, I can see the higher graphics setting I can use on my current machine, a 2018 CyberPowerPC, compared to the 2008 iMac I was using for the first pic (huh, just realized both computers were about 4 years old when the screenshots were taken). The most obvious thing is that, in the second shot, the foliage on the trees in the background has rendered because I can now set a higher draw distance. And you can see more of the power line towers against the buildings in the background, though some of that may be the difference of the in-game time of day.

Hey, I think he would get along well with my Rad/Poison corruptor (well, maybe - this guy's a villain): Borden Jamsey is an unsuccessful chef. So unsuccessful, in fact, that he has turned bad food into an art form. He refuses to follow food safety rules, and he cooks everything in the microwave. Basically, he's going to give you food poisoning, even if you don't eat his food. His name? Recipe for Disaster! (I actually don't play this guy much at all. I mainly created him for the joke.)

Spectral Follower: I am surprised that some hero has not come to defeat this gathering of evil. Archer: Indeed. I'm astonished one has not shown up already. Me: Excuse me, gentlemen!

Perhaps, but he was playing the same games I was playing (it was my system, and my games), and I wasn't seeing anything suspect in the particular games I had. If it had just been the SNES games that prompted his reactions, it wouldn't have been a big deal. It was the overall pattern from him with everything. Nothing was ever just "bad luck" or "oops, I goofed" or "I'm just not good at this". It was always somebody, or some thing actively and maliciously working against him or his interests.

Oh, this guy was well beyond that. For football season, he rented a big screen TV (remember, 1990s) and put it in his bedroom. One Sunday, a former roommate who had moved away was in town and stopped by to visit and watch the game. When he saw that my current roommate had that big TV, he said, "I'm gonna watch the game in there!" I let him go, and stayed in the living room to watch on my 19" CRT TV. He lasted about 20 minutes in there. He came back out with a dumbfounded look on his face, shaking his head and saying, "That guy is unbelievable!" Sat down and watched the rest of the game with me.

Okay, one base downsized, two to go! I combined the computers and generators into one room (they were previously in separate, adjacent rooms). I know I don't need as much of that as I actually have, but I think the stuff looks cool. So that let me delete one room. My base NPCs (trainer, enh vendor, Icon guy, nurse, Hero Corps rep) were already in the entrance room, where they're right in front of me as I portal in, so I left them where they were. The major "problem" room contained all of my salvage racks, inspiration collectors, invention table, Merit vending machine, medi-porters, tip mission computer, and buff machine. The problem was that this room was originally right next to the generator room, down a relatively long hallway from the entrance. So I emptied all of the salvage racks, vendored the stuff, and deleted all of those racks. Deleted everything that wasn't storage of some sort, and moved my three inspiration collectors into my portal room, which is right next to the entrance. Then deleted that big back room. That left me with just three rooms: Entrance, computer/generator room to the right, and portal room to the left. In the portal room there were two portals to Paragon zones, one portal to Praetorian zones, one portal to Rogue Island zones (I have a vigilante or two), and one unassigned portal. Deleted that last one. Placed the three insp collectors on one wall and added three more, assigning each one to a specific type of insp. Place a buff machine, then noticed for the first time that there are two more buff machines that provide higher-level buffs, so I put them in there too. Found a space for the tip mission computer. The entrance room had an empty wall opposite the NPCs, so that's where I stuck the Merit vending machine, invention table, and an enhancement table. Everything is much more conveniently located now. Two more bases to go! Thanks for the suggestions :)

I can't remember - how many consecutive misses does it take for Streak Breaker to kick in? I was playing my ice melee toon the other day and her T1 attack, Frozen Fists, seemed to be missing a lot. So just for fun, as she was fighting a lone, yellow-con minion, I decided to attack with *only* Frozen Fists (it has a quick recharge). Six consecutive misses.

BTW, I mostly have my tongue firmly planted in my cheek while pointing these things out. I find it amusing to analyze these types of patterns. Many years ago, I had the most annoying roommate ever. He acted like literally everything that didn't go exactly his way was some sort of conspiracy against him. For example: Playing video games on my Super Nintendo (it was the 1990s). Every single thing that went against him was because the game was "cheating". Like, he'd be playing a baseball video game, and if he was pitching and the computer's batter hit a home run, the game was cheating. If he was batting and struck out, the game was cheating. If he successfully hit the ball, but it was caught by a fielder, the game was cheating. Watching live sports on TV? His favorite teams never lost because the other team played better. No, his favorite teams lost because the corrupt officials were cheating for the other team. If he was walking down the street and saw a police officer, he would immediately put his head down and change direction. Because the police were "always harassing [him]". Mind you, he had no criminal record to lead to cops "harassing" him. He was in his mid-twenties, but looked like he was 14. Every time he needed cigarettes, he would walk down to the corner convenience store without his ID, then come back a few minutes later, cussing a blue streak because, apparently, the a-holes at the store were "against" him because they wouldn't sell him cigarettes without ID.

I was doing a Malta mission on my fire/fire blaster, and I encountered three Titans in a row as I proceeded through the hallways of an office map. Each time, I spotted them before they saw me, so I clicked Aim, activated my snipe ... and the snipe missed every single time. Three consecutive attempts.

LOL - I'll be fighting in a crowd of enemies, and have my current target down to the point where a single hit from my T1 attack will finish them off. I use that T1 on them, and in the flow of my button-mashing, I've already tabbed to the next target (I have TAB set to "target nearest") and queued up my most powerful attack... ...and the T1 actually misses and I end up wasting my more powerful attack on the first target with 1 hit point. That is also somewhat related to why I prefer brutes over scrappers: the random nature of scrapper critical hits means that I'm constantly seeing big crits on targets that only have a couple hit points left. And I'll think, "Man, that crit would have been a lot more useful earlier in the fight!" Similarly, my aggravation when fighting Freakshow. My attacks that would do enough damage to defeat a Freak just before he activates his self-heal seem to miss 90% of the time. I'm also convinced that there is hidden ACC/ToHit debuff on ranged attacks when the target is in melee range. Blasting enemies on the other side of the room? I'm like a sharpshooter. Enemy get all up in my face? Suddenly, I'm shooting holes in the ceiling! Oh yeah, and my targeted AOE attacks that consistently hit every mob except the one I actually have targeted. It's a conspiracy! C-O-N... spiracy!

Sometimes, there are repeating patterns of behavior amongst the Paragon City criminal element that make me go, "Hmmm..." There are a couple of level 40+ Hero alignment missions that send the player up against the Devouring Earth. Perhaps coincidentally, when I run these missions on a character that does primarily Lethal damage (say, my DB scrapper), these maps spawn with 90%-100% rock monsters (aside from the Devoured monsters), who are particularly resistant to lethal damage. Meanwhile, when I run these missions on a character that deals primarily smashing damage (like my SS brute), these same maps spawn 90%-100% smashing-resistant plant monsters. It's as if the DE knows in advance exactly which hero, with which powerset, is going to respond to their attack, and sends the appropriate "soldiers" on the mission. Several months ago, I found myself quite surprised when an Arachnos Bane Spider Scout pacified one of my characters. I'd been back in the game for more than two years at that point, and this had literally never happened before. I figured out that it was because that particular character did not have Leadership: Assault, which provides resistance to Pacify. Having not previously even been aware that Scouts could do that, I started carefully watching these Scouts while fighting them, watching for that distinctive Pacify animation. And guess what? If my character has Assault, the Scouts don't even bother! I find this odd, because I've always kinda assumed that "status" resistances, after their primary function of actively resisting something or other, would have a sort of passive, secondary benefit of effectively making the opponent waste an attack. That is, opponents will attempt one of their normal attacks, and if I can resist it, they've wasted that attack. But when it appears that they know in advance that I have the mental fortitude to resist pacification, they simply don't try and just shoot me instead. Most recently, while doing a long Nemesis arc, on one mission I became annoyed with all the Toxic damage I was taking from snipers. So after finishing the mission, I went to my SG base and obtained a Resist Toxic buff from handy-dandy buff machine. Thereupon followed a half dozen missions in which not a single sniper appeared (granted, some, but not all of these six missions were entirely populated by automatons). And then, once the buff expired, the very next mission was again full of snipers. As if they knew in advance. Now, I've been playing MMOs long enough to understand RNG. But RNG that consistently rolls in exactly the same disadvantageous way over a span of years just starts feeling weird. Anyway, just ranting a bit :D

Reminds me of rescuing those corrupt cops from the Carnies/Whispered Hand in one of the alignment missions. Every time I stop while leading them out, they start writing tickets :D

All right, thanks! I'mma start fiddling and see how I can improve things.

You've reminded me of another thing I was wondering: Are all those generators and computers actually necessary, in HC, to power everything? Because that stuff takes up a lot of space. My one small base is more or less what you described, it has one medium-sized room off of the entrance room that holds everything I need. Part of the space savings comes from it being the base for my villains, and so it really only needs one teleporter to cover the redside zones. My blueside bases all need at least three. I've also figured out that I really don't need so many salvage racks. I've realized that I almost never use them. My characters store rare salvage in their own personal vault space and just vendor all their common/uncommon salvage. So one thing I can do to make downsizing easier is sell off all of the salvage in the racks. Then the only items I actually have to move before deleting/shrinking the room are my inspiration storage units. Everything else can just be deleted and then replaced in the new, smaller space.